


She consumed me in a heroic madness. I wanted to save her from everything but in the end, she saved me.

by EvilToTheCore13



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hallucinations, One other canon character appears but isn't named, Survival Horror, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25411978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilToTheCore13/pseuds/EvilToTheCore13
Summary: A routine DSO mission gets out of control and Sherry finds herself in a city overrun with zombies and BOWs.
Relationships: Sherry Birkin/Jake Muller
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	She consumed me in a heroic madness. I wanted to save her from everything but in the end, she saved me.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



> Sorry this is unbetaed, I...ended up posting it basically right on the deadline.  
> Warning: police shoot someone in this story, but not in a current events related way. (It's also...not portrayed as a good decision, at all.) This was not an attempt at making a political point, it's just an element of the plot that I couldn't think of another way around.

The part of Ciudad Valle de Ocampo that Sherry had arrived in had been busy enough with tourists that she hadn’t stood out too much. Now, though, as she headed through the city, the shining new skyscrapers and luxury hotels gave way to run-down, graffiti-covered buildings, crowded together. The tourists generally avoided this area, but it was exactly where Sherry needed to go.

The cartel La Familia Romero had been small and almost unheard-of only a year before, but then their rivals had started turning up brutally murdered, their bodies ripped apart. Soon, no-one had dared to oppose them. The DSO had immediately suspected they were using BOWs. They’d sent Sherry in as soon as they had proof, with orders to track down whoever was selling the BOWs and find their base.

Sherry reached the alleyway where she’d arranged to meet the informant. It was only late afternoon, but the heavy clouds overhead made it look like it was already getting dark. The sun wasn’t visible at all, although it was still oppressively hot. As she waited, rain began to fall.

Eventually, the informant arrived. Sherry didn’t know his name, or anything about him other than that he used to be part of the cartel. His hood was pulled down over his eyes, so all that was really visible of his face was a scruffy blond beard.

“Agent Birkin, huh?” His accent was Texan. He’d probably run off to Mexico after committing some crime. “You’re not what I expected when I heard I’d be meetin’ a federal agent. Kinda short, for a start.”

He was only a couple of inches taller himself, and looked even shorter because of the way he slouched. Sherry couldn’t help rolling her eyes slightly. “You said you knew where the cartel were buying their bioweapons from?”

“Yeah, the boss and a few of the others have been drivin’ up into the mountains every few weeks to meet this guy. They always take a load of armoured trucks, I reckon they bring the creatures back in those.”

“But you haven’t seen the BOWs?”

He shook his head. “Only been up there a few times and they didn’t let me see much. Heard somethin’ growl one time though, as we were puttin’ the crates in the trucks. I didn’t wanna look any closer.”

“Did you ever meet the guy selling them?”

“Once. Don’t know his name or anythin’, though. Tall guy, grey hair. American, or sounds like one at least.”

Sherry was about to ask more questions, then stopped. She’d caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Something was crawling over a nearby roof. By the time she turned towards it, it was gone, but she could still hear it moving, barely audible over the rain.

She reached for her handgun, but before she could draw it, the Licker leapt down onto the informant, its claws ripping into him, knocking him to the ground. It lashed out with its tongue, slicing through his chest and killing him instantly.

Sherry drew her gun and fired several shots into the Licker’s exposed brain. It staggered—fell onto its side—thrashed about in pain for a second—but before she could fire again, it leapt towards her. She jumped back just in time. Its claws slashed through the air inches from her face. It landed on the pavement in front of her, scrambling for purchase on the wet ground. She shot it, shot it again, reloaded, and shot it once more, killing it.

Sherry got out her communicator and called Hunnigan. “Just got attacked by a Licker. I killed it, but it killed the informant first.”

“Did you manage to get any information on the cartel before you were attacked?”

“A bit. Not as much as I’d hoped. The guy they’ve been buying BOWs from is based somewhere in the mountains, but I didn’t get chance to ask where. Apparently he’s American, or at least the informant thinks he is, but I still don't know his name or much else about him.”

"Do you know if they're using other BOWs as well, or just Lickers?"

"Not sure--" Sherry paused, remembering something. "That Licker wasn't acting like they normally do, though. Our conversation wasn’t loud enough to alert it, but it somehow managed to track us down, then lie in wait and attack. They're not normally that intelligent."

"That doesn't sound good. It reminds me of some of the reports from the Eastern Slav Republic a few years ago, when people were using Plagas to control Lickers and set them on their enemies."

"You think this one was being controlled?” Sherry frowned. “That would mean some people in the cartel are infected with dominant Plagas.”

Hunnigan adjusted her glasses slightly. “It sounds like this is going to be more dangerous than any of us thought.”

Just at that moment, someone screamed, followed by all too familiar snarls and growls, then more screaming. Did these things happen on a timer or something? Sherry put her communicator in her pocket and ran down the nearby street that the sound had come from.

Two armoured trucks stood in the middle of the street, the back doors open. Several people were sprawled across the ground around it, dead—their stomachs were ripped open and blood was spreading out from their bodies, mixing with the rainwater on the ground.

It was immediately obvious what had killed them. Hunters. At least 20 of them. Some were still hunched over the bodies, tearing off chunks of flesh with their teeth. Others crouched, teeth bared and motionless, apparently waiting for commands from the three men who stood nearby.

The men were clearly part of the cartel—two of them had its emblem on the back of their leather jackets, and the third had it tattooed on his shaved head. All three of them were armed with assault rifles. Luckily, none of them looked like they were infected with Plagas.

Their rifles were trained on a small group of civilians, who were kneeling on the bloodstained ground, hands up, in front of a shop with the windows shattered. Two men, two women—and a boy who couldn’t have been more than 12. The child looked up at Sherry with terrified eyes, and she couldn’t help wondering if that was how she’d looked at the same age, in Raccoon City. Were one or both of his parents among the small group of civilians? Sherry took a deep breath, and forced a reassuring smile onto her face as she looked at the boy. She wouldn’t let him lose his family if she could possibly help it.

“Hand over the money!” one of the men barked, in Spanish.

The older of the two men stared back at them with desperation, close to crying. “I don’t have it—please—I’ll get it by next week—I promise—”

One of the men noticed Sherry and turned to her. “Who the hell are you?” His English was heavily accented. He’d probably assumed she didn’t speak Spanish.

“Agent Sherry Birkin, United States Department of Security Operations.” Sherry rapidly ran through her options. She couldn’t attack the armed men—if they died, the Hunters would go out of control with no-one to give them orders. And if she tried to kill the Hunters first, the gunmen would just shoot the civilians and escape. She’d have to try and negotiate—not really her area of expertise, the DSO didn’t often deal with hostage situations. “If you put the guns down and let these people go, we’ll make sure you get as much money as you want.”

Police sirens were approaching now. The last thing Sherry needed was more people arriving to complicate this situation, especially people who weren’t trained in dealing with BOWs. She had to get the civilians to safety as quickly as possible.

The man glared at her. “They promised us protection money.”

“We can give you twice that. Or more. Just put the guns down, and give the Hunters the command to back away.” At least the more recent models of Hunter usually obeyed commands. Usually.

The man seemed to be considering it, but before he could give any orders to the others, a police car pulled up. Two officers got out, both holding assault rifles.

Sherry turned to them. “Those guys are controlling the Hunters, don’t shoot—”

Before she could finish her sentence, they opened fire, killing the man she’d been talking to. The other two started shooting back, killing one of the police officers, but were soon killed as well. For a moment, the Hunters remained motionless. Then, like a switch had been pressed in their minds, they charged forwards as one frenzied wave to attack the civilians.

Sherry leapt in front of the terrified group. “Run! I’ll fight them off!” She shouted to them in Spanish.

They turned and ran, but two of the Hunters chased after them, close behind and getting closer every second. Sherry emptied her magazine into the first Hunter, killing it—paused to reload—she wasn’t prepared for this, she’d only brought a handgun and her stun rod, this was meant to be an intelligence-gathering mission—

Before she could shoot the second Hunter, a third leapt at her. Its claws ripped through her shoulder. She stumbled, gasping with pain, but the wounds were already healing, and she managed to shoot and kill the Hunter before it attacked again.

The older of the two men screamed. Sherry turned to see him sprawled on the ground, clutching at his arm with one hand. Blood was pouring from it where a Hunter had bitten him. Sherry emptied her gun into the Hunter, killing that one too. For a moment, she aimed her gun at the older man, but she didn't pull the trigger. There was a chance he hadn't been infected, wasn't there? It was slim--that bite looked pretty deep--but she couldn't just gun him down in front of what was probably his family. But if she let him go he could turn and kill the others, he could kill the kid--but then, some people were immune. It was rare, but if she killed him and he'd been immune all along... Sherry lowered her gun, and watched as the younger man ran to the other’s aid, helping him up and carrying him away from the chaos.

Sherry was down to her last magazine now. There was no time to charge her stun rod—she was surrounded. She wouldn’t be able to fight off all the remaining Hunters. At least the civilians had managed to get out of sight—hopefully the Hunters wouldn’t go after them. Sherry ran.

Some of the Hunters ran after her, growling—Sherry zigzagged down a narrow side-street, then another, trying to throw them off. Others ran in different directions, probably in search of more people to attack, but there wasn’t much she could do to stop them with only a handgun and hardly any ammo.

She managed to throw a couple of the Hunters off, but two kept chasing her, snarling and occasionally slashing towards her with their claws, forcing her to dodge—healing factor or no healing factor, she’d have been knocked to the ground if she’d been hit, and they’d have killed her before she had a chance to get up. Soon, she found herself faced with a busy road. The Hunters were too close behind her for her to even hesitate—she ran across, cars swerving and skidding on the wet road to avoid her, the Hunters still following.

A car slammed into one of the Hunters. The front of the car crumpled, the windscreen shattered, and the Hunter was flung into the air by the impact. It landed on the road, dead, blood pooling out from its corpse.

Sherry sprinted onto the pavement, narrowly escaping being run over herself. She glanced back at the second Hunter. It was still crouched on the other side of the road—had the traffic deterred it from chasing her?

Nope, too good to be true. With a sudden leap, the Hunter jumped on top of another car—then it stopped. It stared into the car through the windscreen for a moment—Sherry gave a sharp intake of breath as she realised it had gotten distracted by the people in the car, probably because they were closer, or just easier to catch—no, no, it should be going after _her_ , at least she stood a chance—

The Hunter lashed out, breaking the car’s windscreen. Before it could crawl through and attack the people inside, Sherry shot it, then again, and again, using the last of her ammunition to make sure it was dead.

She paused for a moment, getting her breath back. How had this mission gone wrong so quickly? She was out of ammo now, the city was overrun with Hunters, and if they hadn’t infected anyone yet they soon would. She had to find somewhere at least relatively safe, then call Hunnigan and figure out what to do next, maybe ask for backup.

* * *

Eventually, she managed to get to an abandoned warehouse. She got out her communicator and called Hunnigan.

“Hunnigan. Things are...really not going great. The cartel tried to set a bunch of Hunters on some people, the cops turned up and started shooting and the Hunters escaped in all the chaos. They’ve almost certainly infected people by now. If we don’t send in more agents as quickly as possible, everyone in this city could die.”

Something growled in the distance. Then again, closer. Sherry glanced out of the window briefly, but didn’t see anything. She ducked out of sight, hoping if anything did come near it wouldn’t spot her, and continued, a bit more quietly. “I’m in an abandoned warehouse, but I just heard something approaching—or maybe several things, not sure—and I’m out of ammo. I’m currently just hoping they won’t see me, but I can’t hide here forever.”

“I’ll send backup, but they probably won’t be able to get there for four hours at least.” Hunnigan’s mouth was set into a worried line. “There’s not much I can do in the meantime, but please, be careful.”

“I’ll be fine.” Sherry was generally far from thankful for the G-Virus infection, but it did make her pretty hard to kill. If she had to, she could fight off quite a few BOWs with just her stun rod. “I’m more worried about all the civilians out there.”

She paused, listening. Footsteps were approaching outside. Somehow, Sherry doubted it was a group of friendly survivors. She put her communicator back in her pocket without another word—making any sound would just attract BOWs towards her. If they didn’t notice her, they’d leave the area fairly quickly, since there was no-one else around—then she could head out to try and find survivors, and bring them back here, where it would be safer than the more crowded parts of the city.

Claws scraped against the walls. Sherry waited, silent and motionless. Would they think there was no-one there and leave?

No such luck. A blur of motion flung itself towards the window and smashed through with a sudden crash. Sherry leapt aside to avoid the spray of broken glass, drawing her stun rod at the same time and starting to charge it.

The Hunter landed in the middle of the floor in a crouching position, then reared up on its hind legs once more and leapt towards Sherry. She dodged, swinging her stun rod at it. The creature hissed in pain as the stun rod slammed into it with a shower of blue sparks. It crumpled to the ground. Sherry drove the stun rod down onto its head, killing it, but two more Hunters had already jumped in through the windows.

Sherry struck one of the two Hunters in the face with her stun rod. It fell to its knees, convulsing from the electric shock, and she hit it with a sweep kick, knocking it to the ground. The second Hunter attacked before she had time to recharge the stun rod, raking its claws across her stomach. Sherry doubled over in pain, blood soaking the front of her shirt, then started to run for the door—stumbling for the first few steps, before the wound closed and the pain started to subside—

Something slammed hard against the door from outside. Another Hunter? How many of these things were there?

She turned back to face the Hunter that had attacked her—striking it with a front kick, staggering it enough to buy herself some time to recharge the stun rod, then driving the stun rod into its face as hard as she could. It fell to the ground. Sherry was about to hit it with the stun rod again, to make sure it was dead--

The door was torn off its hinges, falling onto the warehouse floor with a heavy thud. Sherry spun round to face it, only to see another Hunter in the doorway, and more behind it. She glanced out of the window briefly—more Hunters there too. The warehouse was surrounded.

There was nowhere Sherry could escape to. She didn’t stand much of a chance no matter what she did, but she couldn’t just do nothing. She ran towards the door, hoping that maybe her healing factor would keep her alive long enough for her to fight her way out through the army of Hunters. If not...well, at least by killing some of these things she might be doing any other survivors a favour.

Sherry lashed out at the Hunters in every direction—with her stun rod, then with kicks and punches when the stun rod ran out of charge—gritting her teeth and ignoring the claws and fangs tearing at her, gashes being ripped open and closing within seconds, long past the point where most people would have been dead from blood loss alone—

Until a clawed hand struck her hard in the back of the head, sending a jolt of pain through her skull. For a second, everything went black, and she stumbled and fell flat on her face, dropping the stun rod. She pushed herself up unsteadily with one hand, her vision still blurred. The distorted shapes of Hunters loomed over her through a haze of dots. She had to do something—there had to be a way out of this—she struggled to think, her head aching too much for her to concentrate on anything. The stun rod—where was the stun rod? She scrambled for it, but couldn’t find it...what was she looking for? She’d been looking for something, but she couldn’t think clearly...the blurred images that surrounded her started to swim, dissolving into bright colours that hurt her eyes…

A burst of noise thundered around her. For a moment, Sherry was too dazed to even recognise it. Another echoing volley of sound. Blood spraying into the air as the Hunters were mown down. Gunfire. Of course it was gunfire. Sherry’s thoughts started to clear. Who could it be, though? Backup from the DSO wouldn’t have arrived so quickly. Best case, it was a group of survivors who’d found her somehow. Worst case, it was the cartel trying to regain control, and they’d shoot her too.

Sherry struggled up into a crouching position, still not quite able to stand. She glanced upwards, hoping to get at least a glimpse—through the chaos of blood and claws and teeth—of whoever these people were. There were four of them, three men and a woman by the looks of it, all armed with assault rifles. Not just ordinary survivors, then. They were so covered in blood that she couldn’t figure out what uniform they were wearing, if any, and her vision was still too blurry for her to make out their faces.

The tallest of the three men reloaded his rifle, then started shooting again, killing the last few Hunters. He stepped closer to Sherry. She scrambled to her feet, and was starting to back away—she had no idea if she could trust these people, after all—when something about him made her pause. Sherry blinked a few times, her vision finally clearing. She recognised him now—his angular features and icy blue-grey eyes were very familiar, and under the blood and dirt splattered across his face she could see the scar on his cheek.

“ _Jake?_ ”

“Hey Sherry. Hadn’t expected to see you here.”

Sherry gave a half-smile. “We never seem to meet up anywhere nice, do we?”

It had been months since she’d last seen Jake. They’d worked together a few times over the two years since they’d met, but he never stayed around for all that long. He’d always disappear off to do mercenary work somewhere, often not even telling her where. Well... “mercenary” work. Sherry knew he wasn’t really getting paid half the time, or at least nothing like the kind of money he used to demand, but she’d never mentioned it to him. For some reason he still seemed to like to think of himself as some kind of ruthless tough guy who was only in it for the money, even though that was pretty obviously far from the truth.

“Yeah, well. People livin’ in _nice_ places don’t hire mercenaries all that often. Still, good thing I was here, right?” He jerked his hand towards the dead Hunters scattered across the ground. “If you were anyone else, I’d be askin’ you to pay me.”

“With what, an apple?”

One of the other men grinned at that. He was short and muscular with messy black hair and light brown skin, wearing torn camouflage clothing. “This girl’s got you figured out, Jake!” He lowered his rifle and turned to Sherry. “When we hired him, all he asked was for one of us to buy him a beer. I thought he was joking at first, we’d saved up money for months.” He reached out to shake Sherry’s hand. “Name’s Jorge.”

Sherry shook his hand. “Hi Jorge, nice to meet you. My name’s Sherry.” Leaving out the detail of her being a US government agent until she knew exactly who these people were.

“Guess I should introduce you to the rest of the team.” Jake indicated the black man with long dreadlocks standing next to him; he was nearly as tall as Jake, and was the only one of the group wearing a bulletproof vest. “This is Miguel.” Miguel gave Sherry a slight smile and a nod.

He turned to a woman who was slightly shorter than Sherry, with dark skin and straight black hair in a ponytail. “And this is Lupe.”

Lupe had a scar through one eyebrow, and her white t-shirt was stained with blood. She eyed Sherry suspiciously. “How do you know Jake?”

“We work together sometimes.”

“It’s all right, guys, you can trust Sherry.” Jake spoke to the team as a whole, but with a glance in Lupe’s direction. “She’s from the Division of Security Operations. We met in Edonia.” Turning back to Sherry. “Jorge, Miguel and Lupe are part of a vigilante group that was set up to fight La Familia Romero. They hired me after the cartel started usin’ BOWs. I’m guessin’ the DSO sent you in for the same reason?”

“Yeah, I was sent in to find out who they were buying them from, but pretty much as soon as I got here those Hunters escaped and—well, here we are.” Sherry paused. “I thought only about 20 Hunters had got out, but there were way more than that just now. How bad have things got out there?”

“Pretty fuckin’ bad. The first few Hunters to escape attacked another armoured truck that was carryin’ even more Hunters. And now they’ve infected people, animals...” He handed her an assault rifle. “We got work to do, Supergirl. Gotta get as many people to safety as we can.”

* * *

Jake surveyed the panicked group of survivors he and Sherry had managed to rescue. Families huddled together on the floor of the warehouse, people cryin’, or desperately askin’ if anyone had seen their brother or their sister or their kid... One guy had a broken leg, but they didn’t have any medical supplies, so there wasn’t much they could do about that. Sherry had been doin’ her best to reassure everyone. He’d have helped, but that kinda thing had never been his strong suit.

“All right. Jorge, stand guard by the door. Miguel, Lupe, guard the windows. Me and Sherry are headin’ out to see if there’s anyone else out there.”

The city was in chaos. Broken glass and rubble in the streets from where Hunters and infected animals had smashed through buildings. Smoke fillin’ the air—he didn’t know how the fire had even started, maybe someone had tried to set fire to the zombies, or maybe somethin’ had gotten damaged somewhere and set all this off—hell, maybe some crazy person had just started settin’ fire to shit, for all he knew—but either way, it had quickly spread through the city despite the rain.

And then there were the people. They were tryin’ to fight off the zombies with everythin’ they had, but that wasn’t much. Jake and Sherry did their best, but they couldn’t save everyone, not even close. One woman threw herself in front of a Hunter, gettin’ ripped apart just to buy her daughter time to escape. They brought the kid safely back to the warehouse, but she kept askin’ about her parents, and Jake didn’t know what to say. He didn’t like leavin’ it all to Sherry, but at least she had some idea what she was doin’. He wasn’t good with people, let alone kids. The hell you supposed to tell a kid who’s just seen somethin’ like that anyway?

The next survivor they found was worse. He begged them to rescue him, sayin’ how he had a family, how they couldn’t let him die. There was a chunk of flesh ripped out of his arm, blood soakin’ through the rag he’d tried to bandage it with, and his skin had a dull, blue-ish grey look. Jake made himself look at that and not at the guy’s face as he shot him twice in the head, point-blank. It had to be done. Tears were runnin’ down the guy’s face as he died. It had to be done. That was one thing he wouldn’t leave to Sherry—shootin’ people. He was good at that, at least.

They found a few more people who weren’t infected, then headed back to the warehouse. Jake let out a relieved breath when he got back and saw the place hadn’t been attacked while he was gone. That didn’t last long, though. Almost as soon as he got there, Miguel ran towards him, eyes wide with fear, radio in his hand.

“Jake—I just got a call from Manuel”--a spy the group had in the cartel— “and he says they’ve been talking about killing everyone in the city. They’re sending some guys to get a new BOW that’s gonna hunt down the witnesses so they don’t get linked to this.”

Jake turned to Sherry. "You were investigatin' these guys, weren't you? Any idea where they're gettin' these things from?"

"An arms dealer with a base up in the mountains, but I don't know where. They'll be going up there in armoured trucks. If we head for the mountains now we'll probably catch sight of then, then we can follow them to the base."

"Right. Miguel, you stay behind to guard the warehouse. The rest of us are goin' after these bastards before they kill anyone else."

* * *

The forest was dark, and silent except for the rain dripping off the leaves. At one point, Sherry thought she’d heard something moving among the trees, but when she looked round there was nothing there. The group headed through as quietly as they could.

They’d followed the cartel’s convoy up into the mountains at a safe distance until the huge mansion had come into sight. Unlike the cartel members, they couldn’t exactly walk up to the front door. Instead, they'd taken a detour into the forest, although it would be difficult enough to get past the guards even sneaking round the back.

Something moved again. Then a Licker leapt down from the trees, lashing out towards Sherry with its claws. She dodged just in time—shot it once, twice, kept shooting until she was sure it was dead—

More Lickers. Definitely Plaga-controlled—they’d surrounded the group, working together in a way normal Lickers never could. Lupe and Jorge killed several each, but more soon arrived. One slashed Jorge’s forehead with its claws. He wiped away the blood that was dripping into his eyes, and kept fighting. Meanwhile, Jake—Sherry stopped in her tracks. Where was Jake? He’d been just ahead of them a moment ago, fighting the Lickers like the rest of them, but now he was nowhere to be seen.

Sherry ran forwards, shooting another Licker as it lashed out at her with its tongue—she had to find Jake—she kept running, not even pausing to reload, kicking the next Licker to attack her out of the way.

A burst of gunfire echoed through the forest. Not Jorge or Lupe, this came from in front of her. Then she saw Jake. Crouched behind a tree-stump, shooting frantically at a group of men wearing jackets with the cartel’s emblem, who were returning fire. Unlike the guys she’d seen earlier, these ones were snarling, and their eyes were blank. The cartel must have infected some of their own people with Plagas.

Sherry ducked behind a tree before they could spot her. She reloaded her own rifle and shot one of the men in the head. The Plaga’s tentacles lashed out from his neck, but she fired at them again and again until she’d destroyed the Plaga. She kept shooting, killing another, then another. Eventually, between her and Jake, they’d killed them all.

Jake turned to grin at her. “Nice work, Supergirl.”

“You’re not too bad yourself.” Sherry smiled. Then her smile dropped as she realised Jake’s left sleeve was soaked in fresh blood. “Are you injured?”

“No.”

She shot a pointed look at his sleeve. His gaze followed hers. “Oh, that. That’s not my blood.”

Sherry still wasn’t convinced, but before she could say any more, she heard footsteps behind her. She spun around, ready to fight off another attacker.

“Hey—whoa, don’t shoot.”

“Jorge?” Sherry paused, looking around. “Where’s Lupe?”

“I thought she was with you two.” Jorge frowned.

Jake stood up and turned to them. His face was grim. “They knew we were comin’. Hate to say this, Jorge—I know you two were close—but it’s lookin’ like she might have sold us out.”

Jorge shook his head. “Lupe wouldn’t do that.”

“You sure about that?” A deep voice growled.

The man who stepped out of the forest looked nearly seven feet tall. He was pale, with wild dark hair and a beard, and his face was covered in tattoos. Several Lickers followed close behind him.

He stopped only a few metres away from the group. The Lickers stopped too, crouching behind him, ready to attack. He bared his teeth in an animal-like grimace, and his eyes started to glow red. Then claws extended from his hands, bone spikes stabbed their way out of his back, and black veins began to spread across his body.

* * *

The mutated man lunged towards Jake. Jake side-stepped, then opened fire. He shot the man again and again with no effect, bullets flyin’ off in every direction, hitting the trees and sendin’ splinters flying. _Shit._ Jake had heard the dominant Plagas were tough, but hearin' about it was different to havin’ to fight one. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sherry and Jorge fightin' off the Lickers, outnumbered and surrounded.

Jake threw his gun to the ground and ran forwards, hittin’ the man with an open-palmed strike to the face, then a roundhouse kick. The bastard actually _staggered_ then, and Jake grinned. He'd always liked this part of the job.

He ducked under a wild slash of claws, then hit the man in the throat with an elbow strike, sendin’ him stumblin’ backwards. Jake drew his knife and closed in—but then the man grabbed him by his left arm. Claws dug into the bullet wound as Jake struggled to get free. It felt like his whole arm was on fire now, and blood was runnin' down his sleeve and onto the ground. Jake gritted his teeth and lashed out with his knife, but only managed a shallow cut across the man’s face. Then his arm was bein’ twisted behind his back and he was forced to the ground. Somethin’ slammed into the back of his head, and everythin’ went dark.

* * *

Next thing Jake knew, he was wakin’ up in a windowless cell. The pain in his arm had faded to a dull ache. A grey-haired man in a suit stood over him, a humourless smile on his face.

“Jake Muller. I’m sorry to say you don’t live up to your reputation.”

Jake tried to lunge forward and attack him, but was stopped short, jerked to a halt with a jangle of metal. He was chained to the wall. He struggled--cold metal cuttin' into his skin--but couldn’t break them. What the hell were these things made out of?

The man continued. “The rest of your little group don’t have long before my people unleash our new weapon on the city. I suspect they’ll be too distracted trying to rescue you.”

Two scientists in labcoats entered the room. One had a syringe in his hand. The man glanced at them, then turned back to Jake. “I thought since I had you here it would be a waste not to run a few tests.”

* * *

Sherry opened her eyes to find herself lying on the forest floor. With a gasp of pain, she scrambled to her feet. She turned to Jorge. “What happened?”

“You tried to run after Jake as that—thing dragged him away, but a Licker got you.” Jorge was staring at her in shock. “It ripped your stomach open—I thought you were dead.”

Sherry shrugged. “Guess I was just lucky." The last thing she wanted was to have to explain the G-Virus now, and answer all the questions Jorge would inevitably ask. "Now, we need to rescue Jake, and stop the cartel releasing whatever they’re going to release into the city. Do you have a plan?”

“No, but I do.”

“ _Lupe?_ ” Sherry turned to face her, gun raised. But to her surprise, Lupe didn't attack. Instead, she dropped her own gun and held her hands up.

“I’m sorry...I never wanted to betray you.” Lupe looked like she was struggling not to cry. “My brother...he joined the cartel years ago. I hadn’t spoken to him since, but then—just now—I saw him. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him, and he grabbed me, he held a gun to my head—his eyes were blank, he wasn’t acting like himself...they’d turned him into one of those...things—he dragged me off towards the mansion, and that...monster guy demanded to know where you were and what you were doing. He promised me he’d let my brother go if I told him, so I—I did.” She took a couple of deep breaths. “And then...he killed my brother. I betrayed you for _nothing—_ I’m so sorry...”

Jorge glared at her. “Never mind why you sold us out. What’s this plan of yours?”

“I overheard a few things while I was at the mansion. Apparently this thing they’re going to release is in a tank somewhere in the building. It takes a while to prepare it to be let out, and while it’s in the tank it’s defenceless. If we find it before they let it out we can kill it.”

“All right. Jorge, Lupe, you find this BOW and kill it before they let it out of the tank. I’m going to rescue Jake.”

Jorge stared at Sherry. "I'm not working with her. Not after what she did."

"You're going to have to, unless you've got reinforcements waiting somewhere that you didn't tell me about. You can't fight your way through a mansion that's probably full of BOWs on your own, and I have to find Jake."

* * *

The needle plunged into Jake’s arm and the world blurred and dissolved into darkness.

His old commander was starin’ down at him, his face twisted with disgust. “You’re a failure, Jake. Least I killed my team on purpose. You fought as hard as you could for them, and you still weren't good enough, and now they're gonna die trying to save you. You’re pathetic.”

Somewhere nearby, a woman was cryin’, but Jake couldn’t see her. It was his mom’s voice, but that couldn’t be right. She’d never cried, not even when she was dyin’.

This wasn’t real—what had they injected him with?

A man in black stepped out of the shadows. His eyes glowed red-orange behind sunglasses like Jake’s own. A face Jake had only seen in photos, that he’d never wanted to see for real—

* * *

A bullet flew into Sherry's shoulder. She ignored it--she'd healed from much worse--and shot two more of the Plaga-controlled gunmen. Jorge and Lupe had killed most of the cartel members, but these guys weren't from the cartel. They had better armour, better weapons--they were probably the arms dealer's personal guards.

Around her, the mansion was in chaos. Whoever was running this place had released as many BOWs as they could--Lickers, Hunters, giant spiders--to try and fight off the attack. Sherry was doing her best to draw them towards her, to buy the others more time to get to the lab in the basement and kill whatever this new BOW was before it was released.

Where were they keeping Jake? She'd searched several of the labs, but they'd all been empty. Not even any sign of the researchers--they must have escaped somehow, half these places seemed to be full of secret passages. For all she knew, they could have taken Jake. They could be transporting him to another lab to experiment on him, while she searched the entire building looking for him. Or maybe they'd just killed him as soon as the mansion came under attack. No, they couldn't have done. Could they? Even if they didn't know who he was, they'd have noticed his superhuman strength when he fought that guy with the dominant Plaga. They'd want him alive for experiments.

Sherry would find him. She'd search the whole mansion, and if he wasn't there--well, then the DSO would track these people down, find him wherever they'd taken him and get him out of there. No matter what.

* * *

“Jake.” A woman’s voice, and a familiar one.

Not another voice. There were too many voices—voices and faces and things watchin’ him, movin’ in the corner of his eyes—and for the first time in his life, Jake just wanted silence.

“Jake!”

Another needle. Gradually, the cell reappeared around him. In front of him, a figure appeared, at first blurred and then slowly comin' into focus. Sherry was standin’ in front of him, lookin' at him with worried eyes.

"Jake? Jake, it's me. Sherry."

"...Yeah, I can tell it's you. What happened?"

"Oh, thank god, you recognise me. I wasn't sure the antidote would work." She pressed a button on the wall, and the chains clattered to the floor.

Jake stood up, leanin’ against the wall for support. He wasn’t in pain--well, except the ache in his arm, but he'd had worse--but his hands were still shakin’, even though he _knew_ none of that shit had been real. “Sherry—you should’ve gone after the BOW—why are you here?”

“Jake, it’s fine. We dealt with it. We’ve destroyed every BOW in this building, and backup from the DSO will get to the city any minute.” She paused. “The arms dealer escaped, but we can track him down another time.”

Before Jake could do anythin’ more, Sherry had wrapped her arms around him. She smiled up at him. “We’re alive. We’re both alive.” The way her blue eyes were shinin’ even in her bloodstained face...well, Jake couldn't have described it if he'd tried, he'd never been the poetic type. All he knew was he just couldn't help smilin' back at her.

He leaned down, then paused. “We really gonna kiss for the first time when we’re both covered in blood, and in an arms dealer's base?”

Sherry just grinned. "I mean...seems pretty standard for us."

**Author's Note:**

> I just got the title from the prompt, I tried to find out where the quote was actually from but just found a bunch of people's Pinterest boards.


End file.
